The invention relates generally to an imaging and interventional system, and in particular to a system for guiding and facilitating visualization during interventional, electrophysiology procedures using Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI).
Cardiac arrhythmias are a leading health problem, afflicting millions of people world-wide. The field of cardiac electrophysiology (EP) has grown rapidly in recent years to study and treat some of the most common forms of arrhythmia, such as atrial fibrillation (AF) and ventral tachycardia (VT). During EP procedures electrical catheters are inserted into the heart for electrical mapping, pacing and radio-frequency (RF) ablation.
Cardiac interventional procedures such as the ablation of tissue to treat atrial fibrillation and/or other cardiac conditions are complicated due to the lack of an efficient method to visualize the cardiac anatomy and its response to treatment in real-time. Simultaneous guidance of the catheters and visualization of the anatomy presents a significant challenge to the EP interventionalist, particularly when traditional X-ray methods are employed. One current practice is to visualize electrical data through point-by-point acquisition of electromagnetically (EM) tracked catheters. The tracked locations from the catheter are used to form an approximate rendition of the anatomy. Because information on catheter position is unregistered with true anatomical images, the resulting visualization depicts the anatomy poorly. Although possible, positional information from EM tracked catheters is not typically superimposed on any magnetic resonance (MR), computed tomography (CT), X-ray or ultrasound images. In some procedures, such as RF ablations, several hours are spent just to map the anatomy, without acquiring electrical data. Electrical data is thereafter obtained. Thus, current procedures, which require frequent manual tracking of the mapping catheter relative to the display, are tedious and often take several hours. Further, current procedures lack the ability to provide integrated images containing the electrical data important for EP procedures, as well as catheter position data and images of the anatomy.
There is a need to have real-time images of the anatomy superimposed with catheter positioning information and electrical activity measurements.